And… relax.

No, not the lion… me. The last month or so has been rather hectic to say the least, but I’m going to be putting my feet up tonight… with the exception of this blog that is (but of course, Dear Reader, it’s never a chore to chat with you – though I concede it may be a chore to listen to!). Today was Football Team photo shoot, not a premier league team, the squad my boy plays for on a saturday morning.

It all seemed to go swimmingly well (I thought we were at football, not swimming, Ed.), and before I knew it 90 minutes had passed (it was a photo shoot of two halves) and all photos had been taken. I still have to review the photos, but from what I could see on the back of the camera all images were sharp, well lit with the kids looking and smiling at the camera. There are a couple of photos I may well shoot again, but apart from that I’m pleased with the way it went.

I think I mentioned I was going for the modern trend in school class photography, where the children are in small groups and these small groups are then combined onto one canvas to create a panorama type photos of the whole class – in this case the whole football team. I achieved the hi-key look using four studio lights (300w each) and a fantastic 6ft by 7ft lastolite hilite background and train; the equipment is incredibly portable and if I had some external power source I could easily use the kit absolutely anywhere (apart from underwater, or on the moon – the photos wouldn’t have any atmosphere).

I know this doesn’t have anything to do with today’s image of a magnificent male lion who we tracked for 15 to 20 minutes as he padded after a lioness who was in season. I’ll spare you the details, let’s just say he would be following her for a week, and would then need to have a good long rest. Interesting fact (I hope), did you know (and not a lot of people know that) that as a male lion gets older his mane gets darker. It’s alright for some, for some of us, our mane gets lighter and lighter – mine will soon be reflecting all the suns rays.

I absolutely loved Africa – as you’ll be seeing over the coming month (or more – depending how long I can stretch it out without people getting bored – if they’re not already). Having said that I now have some flower photos to upload, and am going to a bird of prey centre this weekend so will have more than enough images for several month on Flickr). Thanks for all the kind words – regards Andy